The Don Quixote PieceScene 6

Lucia the French girl had the quintessential ballet
body. Long painfully thin arms. Long painfully toned legs.
And petite. Petite enough that she could partner with any
male dancer. And light. Light enough that any male dancer
could lift her, could turn her easily. Off stage this body
seemed fragile, breakable even. She was a tall pubescent
girl, perhaps, a thirteen year old. But on stage you saw the
maturity of it. The painful muscle tone of those legs was
compacted with astonishing power and agility. The thinness
of her build was a physical regimen incarnate, and
excruciatingly flexible, and limitless in endurance.

When Lucia the French girl stood next to Jacob he felt
ponderous and gross. When Lucia the French girl lifted a
cigarette to her lips Jacob felt awkward and clumsy. When
Lucia the French girl folded her legs before her to watch
television he felt rigid and wooden. She was what the human
form was meant to be, he often thought. She and Beth. She
and Beth and all the dancers he knew. They were the human
form shorn of all but its essentials. They were the human
form and its essentials heightened and exaggerated to their
perfect expression. They were as true as art, Jacob felt.
Mysterious. He could not watch Beth undress without thinking
this. He could not watch Lucia the French girl walk across a
room without thinking this.

And so, as Lucia the French girl did now walk across the
room, Jacob thought this. She had just passed through the
entrance he could not see and into his field of vision. The
door eased to a click behind her. Jacob watched Lucia move
and thought these things. Jacob watched Lucia the French
girl...

"...And yet she stayed unaware of his presence; of his
working at the square wooden table before the bay window; of
his gazing down across the wooden dining area, across the
wooden living area, to her, to where she stood poised at
center stage. She draped her coat over the sofa. She
dropped her bag onto the sofa. She sat herself upon the sofa
and untied her sneakers. She wiped at her shiny brow. She
pulled her bag close to her then and unzipped it. She
withdrew a pointe shoe. She fingered at a loose elastic band
there and tossed the shoe onto the coffee table. She rose
and moved toward the bathroom. She stepped down into the
bathroom. He watched as she tripped on the light there.
Then, through the mirror, he watched her pivot and open the
shower valve. Then, through the mirror, he watched her tug
over her head her t-shirt. Then, through the mirror, he
watched her peal away her leotard..."

And "Would you want to lunch with me?" Lucia the French
girl called. Jacob glanced up from the pounding of the keys.
Lucia was sweaty still from morning rehearsal, resting still
on the sofa below him, her coat draped over it, her bag next
to her, a pink pointe shoe on the coffee table. She had
interrupted him. But Jacob had heard her. A few minutes
later Jacob was sitting across from Lucia at the dining area
table. The table cloth there was peach.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"Difficult," she said.

"Have enough time?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, but I will accomplish it. Look, it is the parts
with the corps that give me the difficulty. The solos and
the pas de deux already I am able to execute. Grigor is an
excellent partner."

Jacob nodded. Beth had often said the same thing. Jacob
idly wondered where Beth was. He wondered this as he observed
Lucia the French girl lean slightly over a plate of lettuce
and tofu. Jacob knew this salad was all Lucia had eaten
today. He knew it was all she would. She dashed a little
pepper over it.

"Lucky you were already in shape, huh?"

"If not, I would not have come, you know. Beth would not
have called me, you know. You know that. I do not go onto
stage out of form."

Jacob did know this. Lucia continued, "But for some
reason my sartorious is making knots."

"Oh."

"I am stretching it, but...maybe it would have been
better to stay in studio for therapy, but, mother of god what
a hunger I had. And already. Well, one week, no? One week and
nothing more. What damage can one short week do. The money's
nice. I need a shower."

And Jacob squinted.

"Where's Beth?" he asked suddenly.

"Studio."

"Oh." But he did not know why Beth would be at the
studio. She would not be rehearsing. She would not be helping
Lucia with choreography. She would not be being rubbed down
in physical therapy. He did not pursue it.

"Jacob, do you think I'm pretty?"

"Yes."

Lucia the French girl continued munching, thoughtfully.
After a moment she seemed to come to a decision.

"Jacob, are you able to help me with my sartorious?
Beth says those hands of yours are as adept as any
professional's."

Jacob's throat thickened. He said nothing.

Lucia the French girl said nothing.

Lucia the French girl finished her lettuce and tofu. She
drank a glass of water. She carried her plate to the sink.
And then, gliding liquidly to Jacob's side, she leaned in
close to his ear, draping her arm over his shoulders. She
smelled to him of pepper.

"Is it better on the sofa or on the bed," her sibilant
whisper laughed. "I do not remember that Beth has mentioned
this to me."

"Sofa," Jacob replied abruptly, though the bed was
always better for the sartorious.

Jacob moved as if dead. He had not prepared himself for
this. It was the shower he had feared. The mirror. He tried
to remind himself that Lucia was a dancer. That dancers
think of bodies differently. That they spend all of their
time using their bodies and being touched and touching. So
for her to make such a request was not necessarily the
overture it might seem. But where are you, Beth, he asked
himself. For the tightness in him was constricting his
breath. And by the time Jacob stepped his three steps
downward to the living area Lucia the French girl was already
on her stomach on the sofa.

"It is the left one," she told him exhaustedly, parting
her legs.

And Jacob knelt. And Jacob began kneading, kneading at
the inside of Lucia the French girl's left thigh.